oh poor me

well, it's day three. I am in love. Our merry household rocks. There are 9 of us right now & we're usually found on the big wrap around porch shooting the breeze & brainstorming the garden or databases, lol.

My first night here, Cody and Jennifer met me at the airport with a beautiful orchid lei. We went straight out to the lava flows at Po-o-o vent (i'm spelling that wrong) on Kileua. We got there in time to see lava shooting out of the vent & a break at the ocean where the steam flared up orange. STUNNING.

Sunday we walked to the end of the street & snorkeled in the tide pools. My god...coral and fish I've only seen in National Geographic...right there in front of me! Angelfish, parrot fish, sea urchins....inches away. I'm told sea turtles get in there every so often when the tides are high. I seriously need to throw down for an underwater camera. Cody took Jennifer and I to the UH Agriculture farm to see his babies...insanely colorful angelfish he's sutdying for his thesis. We helped him take his daily stats, then got a full tour of the farm. They're even raising Stureon for caviar! After that Cody gave us the big tour of Hilo...we drove out to the waterfalls & the boiling pot swimming holes.

So I've only been here 2 whole days and I have more computer jobs than I can beat with a stick. I'm seriously considering going back into CAD drafting..there's a serious shortage & I can make the same $$ that I made in Silly Valley. Cat (my fabulous house-hostess) is a builder & can throw a lot of work my way. I'm going to talk to her main draftsperson tomorrow to get the low-down on the software they use. I'm going to keep reaching myself Python tho - it's just too damn cool to put down. I also want to help Cody set up a PHP/MySQL db for his UH Master's Thesis so I can learn PHP. Should be super cool since it'll be a database of indigenous tropical reef fish!

Today was a hoot, all the girls piled into the car & went to Hilo. Much as a swore I'd never set foot in a Wal Mart & Safeway again, that's my only choice at the moment! On the way home we hunted for wild Avocados along the road but only found a million mango trees. We'll look again tomorrow - for now we have to settle with the spoils from our Sunday Lychee tree raid :)

We all just got back from the thermal tide pools down the road. A football field sized hot tub - yee haw...and oh my god, the stars. Holy cow.

Big day tomorrow - we're heading into town to meet up with Cat's Architect, then Daniel's going to teach me spearfishing so I can catch some dinner for the grill...after that we're ripping into the garden & putting in used-tire raised beds.

I still have to unpack completely & find my dang camera. I'm in the third floor loft with an attic staircase so it's slow going to get all 200 lbs of my luggage up the little stairs. But, I am getting settled and relaxing like a pro. This was definitely a good move!